ON STAGE THE WEEK’S BEST
LOS LOBOS
Style: Americana that acknowledges terms like “Latino” and transcends them via longevity.
Backstory: East L.A.’s Los Lobos (yes, “the Wolves” en español) began from interest in musicians like Ry Cooder and Randy Newman but also embraced Mexican sounds the members heard while growing up. Their 1984 album, “How Will the Wolf Survive?,” and their 1987 remake of Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” brought them to national attention.
Why you should go: The band has lasted via steady aplomb not seen among most other outfits their age, perhaps because they’ve never quite been stars. Instead, they’ve acted as if they’ve got more to play and prove, and their latest LP, 2015’s “Gates of Gold,” is a strong entry in a long discography of modestly carried, sharply executed rootsy greatness.
Opener: Anders Osborne, a prolific, powerful singer-songwriter from New Orleans.
Time and place: 8 p.m. Friday, Turner Hall Ballroom, 1040 N. 4th St
Price: $45 at the door and in advance at the Pabst Theater box office (144 E. Wells St.), the Riverside Theater box office (116 W. Wisconsin Ave.), (414) 2863663 and pabsttheater.org.
— Jon M. Gilbertson, Special to the Journal Sentinel
THE HANDSOME FAMILY
Style: A husband-and-wife combo steeped in traditionalism and darkness.
Backstory: Brett and Rennie Sparks have melded his talent for music and hers for lyrics into the Handsome Family, which with its side players and guests has been recording and touring since the mid-1990s. The use of the Handsome Family song “Far From Any Road” as the theme for the highly acclaimed first season of “True Detective,” in 2014, upped the main duo’s profile considerably.
Why you should go: HBO highlights and the fondness of fellow indie guy Andrew Bird (who recorded a full-length of Handsome Family covers in 2014) aside, the group remains a midnight stroll through the haunted cemetery of American musical styles, especially country and folk. The most recent Handsome Family full-length, 2016’s “Unseen,” locates more footfalls in the graveyard.
Opener: Chris Crofton, an actor, comedian, podcaster, etc., whose “Hello It’s Me” is a smart album debut.
Time and place: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Shank Hall, 1434 N. Farwell Ave.
Price: $20 at the box office, (866) 468-3401 and shankhall.com.
— Jon M. Gilbertson
LOW CUT CONNIE
Style: Dirty rock ’n’ roll. Backstory: Around 2010, Adam Weiner went from playing piano on his own to playing piano in a band when he formed Low Cut Connie, which in turn recorded its first album, “Get Out the Lotion,” in a handful of days before releasing it in 2011. Solid response from influential critics and enthused listeners encouraged Low Cut Connie to solidify a lineup and get in the van.
Why you should go: With its most recent discs, 2017’s “Dirty Pictures (Part 1)” and this year’s “Dirty Pictures (Part 2),” Low Cut Connie has consolidated barrelhouse bluster and late-night lust into rolling rock that would seem oldfashioned and corny if not for the band’s strange transformation of the material into fresh fire. The band’s live reputation is outstanding, natch.
Time and place: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Turner Hall Ballroom.
Price: $12.25. — Jon M. Gilbertson
A$AP FERG
Style: A chic distillation of the trap hip-hop subgenre.
Backstory: Thanks to his father, who ran a Harlem boutique, Darold Ferguson Jr. initially was less into music than into fashion; by the mid-2000s, he’d already introduced clothing and jewelry lines. Later, the art-school attendee found greater musical devotion, fell in with the A$AP Mob enclave and picked up his Ferg moniker. “Trap Lord,” his first solo LP, came out in 2013.
Why you should go: With 2017’s “Still Striving,” his third solo LP, Ferg has reasserted the stark, trebly, hypnotic, oft-bleak trap perspective. Festooned with guests, the LP is as much a statement of style as of intent, and on his current “Mad Man” tour — the current stop a makeup date for a postponed Milwaukee gig last March — he’s relying on his own authority to do more than strive.
Opener: IDK, another aristocrat of trap.
Time and place: 8 p.m. Thursday, the Rave.
Price: $40.50.